The Ghost of Prospero
by Belleshazar
Summary: Erik offers to read Christine a bedtime story. But what is her strange request? EC Oneshot.


**Note:** This oneshot takes place during the time when Christine is living with Erik and is mostly based off of Kay's world.

**Disclaimer:** I hold no claim to any of Leroux's characters, Kay's story line, or E.A. Poe's "Masque of the Red Death" (of which I borrowed the first and last sentences).

**Prospero's Ghost**

"Erik."

The utterance was timid and fragile, so soft the Opera Ghost himself had to look up to confirm her presence. He had been furiously scratching out a troublesome bar in Don Juan's Act V for what felt like the umpteenth time that night. But seeing _her_ hovering by the doorway, shadowed by the cascading fabric of her shift, instantly appeased his frustration. Slowly, he rose from the desk, palms pressing into his sides. The intense gleam of his eyes made Christine Daae shiver involuntarily.

"I... I couldn't sleep." The words felt as though they were encased in cement as she forced them from her throat.

"Shall I read to you again?" Came the murmured response. The chorus girl nodded almost imperceptibly.

With elegance, Erik stretched out his arm and the distance between the two somehow dissipated as she was drawn closer, reeled in like bait on a line. She let herself be led to the settee, settling into its dark velvet cushions.

"Would you read to me... 'The Masque of the Red Death'?" Christine felt the arms around her shoulders stiffen, then recoil.

"That's hardly a bedtime story." He said quietly, though she heard the bitterness laced beneath. But she put on her best beseeching expression, and just one glance into those anxious eyes forced the Phantom to concede. Sighing, he rose to the bookcase and pulled a thick, black volume from the shelf. Christine caught the gold lettering of E.A. Poe embossed upon the cover before it was shifted from the light of the fire. After returning to his seat, she heard Erik breathe in sharply like a swimmer preparing for a dive. He split the book open and thumbed through the worn pages to somewhere in the middle.

And then that voice!

"_The 'Red Death' had long devastated the country. No pestilence had ever been so fatal, or so hideous." _

Christine was contented to let the words roll over her in torrents, surrendering to their dizzying power. She was only half aware of her head lowering to his chest, her feet curling under her legs. Absently, the young girl envisioned how easily Erik would be able to quiet the crying of his children with a mere song. Yet the realization came swiftly: _He'll never have children, will he? What woman would bear them, after setting eyes upon his face?_

Soon she was enraptured with the tale of the eccentric Prince Prospero, who believed he could lock himself and his subjects away inside the lavishness of his castle while the rest of the country cried out under the heavy agony of the plague. Death, however, came even in a world brimming with lush colors, dancing women, and ambrosial feasts. The masked and corpselike specter known only as the Red Death hunted Prospero down as surely as a ravenous wolf stalks its prey...

As Christine listened, the voice of the man above her grew to an embittered intensity as it told of the annihilation of the helpless inhabitants within the Prince's high walls. Erik, meanwhile, was silently tormenting himself. _That's just like the monster you are- slaughtering the undeserving with one glance from your disgusting face. You don't even need a mask to resemble Death._ He hoped Christine didn't notice how his hands trembled as they clasped the book.

"_...And Darkness and Decay and the Red Death held illimitable dominion over all."_

He finished in what was barely a whisper and stole a glimpse at the beauty resting under his chin. Stirring, a murmur escaped from between her lips.

"Forgive me, child. What did you say?"

Christine removed her face from Erik's shoulder. "I said that you are not at all like the Red Death."

"Oh?" His expression was unintelligible as he waited for his protégé to continue.

Holding her breath, Christine simply stated, "You're almost exactly like Prince Prospero."

He couldn't help but bristle at the comparison, nor could he stop from hissing his next words. "Prospero was a fool who gladly sacrificed his responsibilities to lavish in his wealth! He abandoned the poor as though they were rabid dogs! You liken me to that?" Two burning pinpricks reflected the fireplace beyond and bore into Christine's eyes.

"Prospero tried to hide within the depths of his fortress, tried to escape the cruelty of the world. He thought he could erase its sufferings by indulging himself with his passions. Isn't that what _you _do, Erik?"

He leapt from the settee. The sliver of his face uninterrupted by bone-white mask twisted in abrupt and uncontrollable fury. "How dare you make such presumptuous remarks? How _dare_ you? Do you think me a coward, living out of sight of those who have scorned me? Is it not enough- all that I have suffered, all that I have been denied! You have no idea what it is like, to be caged and gawked at, to be refused a mother's love! You ignorant little _snake_."

With eyes growing round between a thick guard of lashes, Christine shrunk back in her seat. She was suddenly breathless.

"E-Erik, I only wanted-"

"Wanted to utterly infuriate me?" Came the biting reply, edged with enough poison to send even the Kahnum hiding behind her veils.

Daringly, she reached for his clenched hand, only to have it jerked away as though her fingers were heated irons. "I only meant," she stammered, "that both your fears prevent you from living in the real world, that you both try to run from your troubles by-"

A resounding crash echoed through the room. Erik was breathing jaggedly, the book lying three meters from his feet where it had hit the organ.

"Go on, finish." There was a warning in his voice, a warning that sent tremors down Christine's spine.

"You try to... escape your fears by using what you love. Prospero, parties. And you, music... darkness... m-morphine."

When he lunged out and dragged her from the settee towards the fire, she knew she had gone too far. Trying to fight her rising terror as his thin fingers dug their way into her shoulders, Christine sought for words that would dim the maddened fury of his gaze.

"That's not to say you've lived the same lives!"

He yanked her closer. She was drowning... She was drowning and would surely die in his furious wake!

"I m-mean Prospero always had people admire and fawn over him. But you... you've suffered so much. I didn't mean to belittle that. And I'm sorry, I'm so sorry!" The man who grasped her stared motionlessly. She was truly shaking now, but whether it was from fear or real remorse he could not decipher. Then the whisper. "I think any other man would have given up and died long ago. You always seem so strong."

_You always seem so strong..._

Erik did his best to ignore those words, but in the end her eyes undid him anyway. Those damned, unwavering wells that shimmered somewhere within their depths. He released his grip from her slender frame, and she propelled backwards instantly, collapsing against the wall like a broken doll.

"P-please."

He could still see Christine tremble even from where he stood. For a moment only the crackling from the hearth interrupted the thick silence, and shadows danced mockingly between them. Erik's gold eyes softened unexpectedly, adopting a far away look.

_Now look what you've done... You really are a monster. You really are the Red Death._

"Erik."

A fine line cracked and splintered away his perfect veneer without warning, exposing some new emotion. His name on her lips made him feel vulnerable... just as if she had ripped off his mask for all to see. She was pleading, she was terrified. He felt unfamiliar tears prick at the corners of his eyes, he felt as though he was suffocating. His hands reached for her in supplication, as if her touch was necessary to sustain him. Christine shied away from him but stared in wonder at his tears. She furrowed her dark brows in confusion. Who was this little boy suddenly possessing her teacher, her angel, her captor? Who was this broken man?

Hesitantly, she reached forward and brushed her fingers along his uncovered cheek. The Phantom bent his head then, which gave Christine the courage to close the gap between them, his insanity forgotten. She allowed Erik to cling to her, to wet her nightgown with his tears, his mask pressing uncomfortably into her neck. He didn't want her to see. He didn't want her to see him at all.

But she did...

The kiss came soft as a whisper upon his head, as gentle as the fingers through his hair. _Oh God!_ He couldn't stand the nearness of her body, her lips, when she thought him a coward. When she didn't really love him.

Erik suddenly pulled away, deeply disturbed and embarrassed. He turned his back to the bewildered Christine so she could not see him drying the tracks under his eyes. When he looked at her again, he showed no sign of being upset, his face a mask under a mask. He gestured towards the door.

"Leave me. You'll be needing rest for our lesson tomorrow." The cold voice had returned.

Christine drifted off to her room in shock, not knowing what else to do. She could not withhold the suspicion that many more nights would end like this.

**Fin.**

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